This postcard comes from a time when Venice, California had been established for about 15 years and things were a lot more developed. The big, Coney Island-style roller coaster in the background is evidence of that. The postmark on the back of this card is stamped 1921. By this time, the gondoliers, or the people who maintained the gondolas, had taken to painting them new colors besides black. White or tan decks had been common for some time there, but in this postcard image, we see new hull colors too. The gondola in the foreground has a distinctly red tone while the one behind it is green. Many of the postcards we have from this era began as black-and-white images which were then colored by hand, so it could be that these two boats were black in real life, and only red and green on paper. I doubt it though, because there are so many different images showing gondolas of different colors, including one from another post card which I'll show you in another post. That gondola is all white.
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